


You're In My Imagination

by MontyKarl



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Other, Recreational Drug Use, Tattoos, Tree Houses, brief suicide mention, quick slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 13:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20064979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontyKarl/pseuds/MontyKarl
Summary: Josh and Tyler used to play pretend and give each other different names.





	You're In My Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> title from chimera by the howlies, i wish this was longer but I'm just happy to be writing again, also i barely proofread this be gentle with me.

Josh was 7 the first time he skinned his knee in the church parking lot in the middle of summer, and Tyler cried harder than he did. It took their mothers 20 minutes to clean them both back up, shaking their heads as Josh eventually sat, with his knee bandaged and reassured Tyler it was okay, finally calming him down.

Josh can't remember a time when Tyler wasn't there for him, he could if he really tried but he didn't see the need.

  
When they were 11 they used to play for hours outside, Tyler's father had built a tree house at the edge of the backyard that opened into a small forest. Tyler's little brothers would join in sometimes and they'd all pick new names and play some form of make believe. Josh's secret favorite was playing house when he'd steal a doll from his sisters and he and Tyler would pretend to go to work and make dinner. Zack would make fun of them and ask which one was the mom, but they'd never discussed who was who, they would just make leaves and mud pies and pretend to sleep in the tree house until the next 'day' came.

Tyler got his first girlfriend when he as 13 and Josh couldn't explain the anger at finding out Tyler had taken her out back to the tree house and kissed her. Josh wanted to be happy for his friend, but he felt betrayal and anger and guilt at all of this. They only dated for a couple weeks as most 7th graders do. Josh and Tyler had long since quit playing pretend and had changed this out for video games and basketball, but Josh would still wistfully think about it from time to time.

When Josh was 15 he kissed his first girl, it was outside of a movie theater waiting for their parents to pick them up and Josh wasn't sure if he liked kissing too much. He saw Tyler two days later, and told him about it, and Tyler just teased him.

At 16 Tyler and Josh snuck their respective girlfriends into the now cramped tree house in Tyler's backyard. The ladder starting to splinter, the wood starting to turn in spots where the varnish had worn away. Josh had a couple warm beers he'd taken from a family cook out earlier that week and his stomach was already churning as he followed a giggling Tyler and girls up the tree. Tyler and Josh ended up sharing one beer and the girls the other. Tyler's girlfriend, Jane, initiated the first kiss and soon the girl Josh had taken on just a few dates, started to play with his hand and his hair, blushing and trying to get him to kiss her as Tyler was kissing Jane.

Just as Josh finally gave in, his nose feeling too big for his face as it brushed hers, Tyler's mother began yelling out across the backyard and everyone scrambled down the ladder. the girls got away, but Josh and Tyler both got grounded for a week. Josh just remembers feeling relieved and warm still from the alcohol as he stared at Tyler's puffy kissed lips.

Tyler ended up losing his virginity before Josh, just a month shy of turning 18 and Josh ignored the way seeing T+J looked etched into the roof of the tree house made him feel, knowing who the J stood for. It was a contrast to the only other carving inside the tree house, a simple 'Tyler and jOSH were here' under the window, handwriting a sign of years past.

College came and threw them for a loop. Tyler went to one school with a full ride for basketball, and Josh to another just to appease his parents. Over the years so many things had changed, the only remaining constant between them were the memories of summers past making up stories and playing until the sun had set. Josh would get high, hot boxing his friend's car until his eyes were glazed and he would go on about the perfect consistency for mud to make a mud pie.

Josh was 23 when he dropped out of college and moved back in with his parents. He hadn't spoken to Tyler in almost a year and a half. Josh ran into him at the 24 hour gas station while buying munchies and Tyler's eyes lit up despite the dark circles beneath them.

"You look tired."

"Wow, thanks dill-hole, you look high." Josh laughed and Tyler payed for his Oreos and Josh offered him a ride home when Tyler confessed he had taken a walk and wandered around until he'd made it to the mini mart. Josh still knew the streets back to Tyler's parents without any help.

"You wanna hang out?" Tyler asks, feet propped on Josh's dash as they passed the Oreos back and forth, they'd been like this for almost half an hour and Josh was pretty sure they were already hanging out. Regardless, he followed Tyler around the back of the house and for a moment, just briefly, he thought they were heading out to the tree house until Tyler let him in the kitchen door and wandered down to the basement.

It was set up like it used to be with the washing machine and the couch and the half finished walls, only a bed and dresser were shoved into the corner that Tyler promptly flopped face forward onto. Josh took the couch and set the remaining cookies next to him and waited for Tyler to resurface.

Eventually he rolled to his side, eyes wet and red rimmed and Josh wasn't sure when he'd started crying and wasn't sure if there was anything he could say to calm him down.

"I tried to kill myself."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I'm....I'm sorry." Josh was fuzzy and his emotions were slow to catch up, the pang in his chest ebbing out through his fingers as he stood and crossed to the bed, crawling onto it and wrapping himself around Tyler as he cried.

It was a few weeks later that Josh showed up at Tyler's house at 2am when he got a text asking him to come over.  
Tyler was outside, laying at the back of the driveway and Josh laid with him, staring at the speckled stars and void of sky.

"I can't sleep."

"I know." Josh said, head lolling to the side on the rough concrete, the night was chilly compared to the day as the fall approached bringing a warning for an icy winter. "Do you wanna smoke?"

Tyler shrugged, but stood and held out a hand to help Josh up, his hand staying clasped around Josh's as they wandered past the rays of the motion light and out into the quiet night. He only let go in favor of the rough wooden ladder slats and Josh followed without hesitation. His hand brushed over the frayed piece of rope they used to use with a bucket as a pulley system until they'd tried to pull Jay up in it and he ended up with a broken wrist.

Josh was surprised to see Tyler had a blanket, a flashlight and a couple books inside the old tree house, recently used. He set up the light so it shown at the roof, the boxed room casting thick angled shadows around carelessly as Josh pulled out part of a joint he'd had on him and lit it, offering it to Tyler after he was sure it was burning. Tyler's fingers were clumsy, awkward around his carefully hold on the joint, inexperience in the way he inhaled too quickly and turned into a coughing fit that Josh laughed through, taking the joint back as Tyler groaned and leaned back against the windowless wall to catch his breath, a small laugh escaping to echo Josh's.

Josh laid down, watching the smoke curl against the flashlight shadows and the etched initials in the ceiling his arm reaching out to trace them but falling short as depth perception failed him. Tyler slid down the wall until he was on his back, rearranging himself to lay by Josh's side, ignoring the carving above that no longer meant anything to him. Josh could hear him breathing, he'd closed his eyes against the onslaught of thoughts and shadows and almost missed Tyler talking.

"I could be...Togg and you'd be Jogg-no, Jog with one G so no one thinks we're related. I work everyday as a spaceship captain and I don't know that you're secretly an alien but-"

"What?" Josh asks, laughing as he tries to process Tyler's nonstop babble.

"You said you wanted to play make believe again and I was coming up with our backstory."

"Oh..." Josh wondered when he'd said that, but couldn't help adding, "Am I the mom then?"

"You're an alien, I don't think you have a gender, but we're definitely married."

Josh felt the laughter bubble back up and froth over into the quiet night's air and Tyler's joined in, only quieting down when Tyler's arm comes to rest across Josh's chest, his nose pressed to Josh's neck.

"I know you're an alien, I've known this whole time, but I love you anyway." Tyler mumbles and Josh already knows they're sleeping here for the night long before Tyler's breathing evens out and the flashlight flickers out of battery.

Josh is in very much the same position, but this time it's daylight and he's sober and Tyler's still pressed against his side, the wind just missing them as it hits the wooden slats on the tree house walls, the sound of leaves blowing almost drowning out Tyler as he says, "We should get matching tattoos."

"What would we get?"

"Something small maybe or...maybe each other's names."

"Whatever."

"I'm serious."

They end up with Xs that mark the spot like the old treasure maps they'd make when they were pirates or space explorers and Josh gets his behind his ear and after it heals he finds Tyler's lips gravitate there on early mornings when they lay together in the tree house and then in Tyler's bed when the snow begins to fall and it's too cold to be outside.  
Josh finds himself daydreaming in the dark as Tyler sleeps and dreams about carving his name onto Tyler's wooden skin, not caring about the splinters.

After Tyler's 23rd birthday party wraps up, he and Josh sneak downstairs, they'd shared a beer between them and Tyler shared  
glances and touches and the air of something missing, and Josh followed him like a treasure map, the X on his arm trailing down to their clasped fingers.

The space heater by the bed almost knocked over as Josh is pulled down against Tyler and the bed and Tyler's lips are just as soft as he'd always figured they would be. Tyler tastes like frosting and hard cider, and Josh can't stop his hands from shaking as he holds onto Tyler's ugly Christmas sweater he'd put on as soon he unwrapped Josh's gift.

Tyler's fingers were more deft, experienced in the way they pulled Josh's shirt over his head, unbuttoned their jeans, wove through Josh's hair and pulled him closer.

Josh hadn't dated anyone since high school and aside from a couple of awkward make out sessions with his friend Brendon after they'd get high or been drinking, Josh was making things up as he went. He was overheating in nothing but his underwear with Tyler pressed tight against him, the space heater on the floor held no contest to this. Tyler's eyes were still tired but soft as he sat back, giving Josh room to breath, and josh drank in the way his lips looked swollen and red, the flush running across the bridge of his nose and down his chest, ugly sweater abandoned at the foot of the bed.

Josh couldn't help the way his hand darted out, sliding across Tyler's chest, trailing off along the tattoo they shared, and finally coming to rest holding his hip, a grounding presence. josh couldn't believe this was real, his heart hammering in his chest as Tyler dipped back down, missing his mouth and inside kissing along Josh's neck. Tyler's hips searching for purpose and Josh's racing thoughts were halted at the sound Tyler made next to his ear. A soft whine and Josh carefully pulled Tyler closer if it was possible and bucked up, his cock dragging against Tyler's, the thin cotton separation driving Josh mad with want.

Josh had imagined this before, too many times to admit, playing make believe with his own thoughts and nothing could have prepared him for the real thing. Tyler's whines came frequently, his fingers woven back into Josh's hair, pulling lightly, enough to make Josh groan back, gasping for breaths in between. He almost missed when Tyler's hips stuttered, grinding a slow circle, his breath hitched against Josh's neck and he pulled back slowly, chest heaving as Josh was sure his was too. Tyler scrambled back, sitting up on his knees, still straddling one of Josh's thighs, a dark stain barely visible on the front of his briefs and Josh felt his cock twitch at the sight.

Something Tyler had begun to busy himself with, his fingers tracing the outline through Josh's underwear before pulling them down, his palm was sweaty or maybe he'd licked it when Josh wasn't paying attention as it wrapped around his cock and Josh had no time to feel embarrassed or unsure as Tyler stroked him, pace picking up every time Josh's fingers pressed harder against Tyler's hips until he was coming, spilling over Tyler's fist and then Tyler was kissing his panting mouth and they laid in bed in a mess until they fell asleep, wrapped in blankets and each other.

Josh is 26 and his hands are shaking as he presses the needle into Tyler's skin, easily copying the childish handwriting that had faded over the years, the wood in the tree house staying strong despite the weather and wear as it sat in the sycamore.

Josh is 26 and his boyfriend is writing T-Y-L-E-R carefully, retracing the letters on his knee, and it burns and Josh loves it like smoke in his lungs or splinters in his fingers or a scraped knee in a parking lot. They go home later that evening and neither of them is the mom, and the house they play in is actually a small apartment, and their names are the same. They do not need to carve T+J in the wood anywhere as they already know it's true, they do not need a treasure map or spaceship to find each other, they don't have to play pretend anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> oof, anyways i'm casper aka j-shler on tumblr and i'm trying to get back into writing, send me prompts and stuff or comment/leave kudos if you made it this far (kid)


End file.
